On page 154 on table 6-1, Earth Stance is listed as having the following mechanical benefit:

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When other characters make Attack action checks and Scheme action checks that target you, they cannot spend [Opportunity] to inflict critical strikes, conditions, or persistent effects on you.

While I have yet to actually put this system to the table, this FEELS like it is a little too powerful. I personally feel that it should be similar to the Air Stance, where you improve your defenses slightly but do not make it impossible. My version would be: Earth Stance - Increase the cost of spending [Opportunity] to inflict critical strikes, conditions, and persistent effects on you by 1 [Opportunity] (Possibly 2 [Opportunity] if 1 isn't expensive enough).

Does anyone have any table experience one way or another on this?

Interesting. Following.

Well in Earth Stance, you are enduring. A lot of katas and such require specific stances and you lose out on offensive and other useful abilities in Earth stance, so it makes sense.

In testing earth stance is hands down the best stance. Ashigaru armor makes katana only hit for 1 damage by default. The play pattern I'm seeing is you use striking as earth with a big weapon to solve all your conflicts. An early pump into earth to get to keep 4 lets you kill weaker enemies in one hit basically every time while giving you 5 to 7 resistance (+1 if you're a crab). The only counterplay to this style is techniques that force you to change your stance, but I mean, such is the nature of the game. You can argue that striking as water lowers your reduction, but you're high earth anyway so the damage isn't an issue. Crits are what you're worried about, as just one can totally cripple your character. Being simply immune is so incredibly strong.

35 minutes ago, player2636234 said:

In testing earth stance is hands down the best stance. Ashigaru armor makes katana only hit for 1 damage by default. The play pattern I'm seeing is you use striking as earth with a big weapon to solve all your conflicts. An early pump into earth to get to keep 4 lets you kill weaker enemies in one hit basically every time while giving you 5 to 7 resistance (+1 if you're a crab). The only counterplay to this style is techniques that force you to change your stance, but I mean, such is the nature of the game. You can argue that striking as water lowers your reduction, but you're high earth anyway so the damage isn't an issue. Crits are what you're worried about, as just one can totally cripple your character. Being simply immune is so incredibly strong.

Thanks! Good to hear about actual play test. And yeah, Heavy Armor + Striking as earth + critical strike immunity is looking pretty strong. Im guessing that the only good answer for this is the Heart Piercing Strike to force a critical. (and then Hida's can just shrug it off anyway)

2 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

Well in Earth Stance, you are enduring. A lot of katas and such require specific stances and you lose out on offensive and other useful abilities in Earth stance, so it makes sense.

Being a good defensive stance is fine. Straight up shutting down a massive chunk of your opponent's options, however, is not.

2 hours ago, player2636234 said:

An early pump into earth to get to keep 4...

I wouldn't call 18 xp minimum* an "early pump" (4*3 + 2*3 to ensure you have 2 in everything else so you're allowed to get rank 4). I do agree that defensive fighting seems over the top in this game.

* okay you can get 3 earth and 3 void with the right ancestry but it's wildly unlikely.

What do u think of a new earthstance that's says : to critical hit you with opportunity an opponents must use 1 more opportunity ? (3 opportunity to crit hit you)

5 minutes ago, Kakita Renju said:

What do u think of a new earthstance that's says : to critical hit you with opportunity an opponents must use 1 more opportunity ? (3 opportunity to crit hit you)

Maybe 2 more. 1 more would be too weak, don't?

maybe earth/2 rouded down more opportunity so it's scalling
3 opportunity is already very hard on a 3ring 3 kenjutsu

What about ignoring the first critical in a turn?

that's seems op in 1v1

19 minutes ago, Kakita Renju said:

maybe earth/2 rouded down more opportunity so it's scalling
3 opportunity is already very hard on a 3ring 3 kenjutsu

None of the other stances have scaling benefits based on your Rings.

Just looking at other powerful abilities and I see Fire Stance with the Lions Akodo Commander school ability. It only works in Skirmish and Mass Battle. You add success from any Strife you roll, then reduce your Strife by school ranks to add that much more success!

Thats a heck of a lot of extra damage on a combat check

Not to mention a tattooed monk can destroy the armor of the defensive fighter and or their weapon and freeze their chi causing massive damage. Once you take an injury in a stance, you also take penalties for staying in that stance. It might be the easy way, but I'm not sure its the best or strongest way....yet anyways.

Yeah Akodo has a pretty good school rank (and specially a good way to get rid of Strife.) In particular i dont like because encourage Akodo players to run from Clashes and Duels like the plague. They are this unstopable force fighting against someone in a skirmish, but if singled out they lose their mojo.

Anyway after some rolls, Despite Earth Stance literally being a counter to Striking as Fire. You get more Strife than opportunitys on your rolls (And success with Strife). so the fire stance actually improves the damage output, which helps breaking through the armor. Im guessing that the fire stance is countered by the air stance and guard in general (increasing success you need to hit and making you waste your generated Strife). and Air Stance x Earth Stance is an combat so exciting that will make you sleep.

My doubt now is really if being immune to critical strike is over the top or not.

The Fire Stance bonus only adds "bonus success". I wonder if it doesn't work if you fail? That would temper it down a bit but probably should be more clearly explained if it's true.

Just now, Richardbuxton said:

The Fire Stance bonus only adds "bonus success". I wonder if it doesn't work if you fail? That would temper it down a bit but probably should be more clearly explained if it's true.

Yeah, Fire stance only triggers when you have success on the task. Its actually pretty good, i was chocked on how much Strife you get along successes.
But then if you fail the TN by 1, all those Strife go to waste, stance of inches.

Strife is very very common! I think you could expect at least 1 on every single roll. Especially when your relying on Ring dice. Skill training really does help you keep composure in this game.

Any thoughts out there about modifying Earth Stance to put it more in line with Air Stance?

I feel negating the first critical strike, conditions, or persistent effect (rather than negating all of them) is still a little too powerful. Air Stance does not negate the first Attack or Scheme you are targeted with. While it has pointed out that 3 Opportunities itself is pretty expensive, it is still achievable. As for not being able to remain in the same stance after you have taken an Injury, those generally come about from Critical Strikes either through lucky hits or through enough damage.

While a Togashi Monk could theoretically cause harm using Techniques, I am more concerned with looking at this outside Techniques. Or, in other words, one should not have to specialize to overcome a combat option available to everyone.

Well... Air stance increase the tn to target you by 1. The thing more in line with this is making every opportunity that target you cost 1 opportunity more. So a critical would be 3 Opportunities (I guess that advanced bushis will still hit this pretty reliable... but thats also true to a bushi in air stance so...) Removing armor with striking as water would cost 2 opportunities and so on. i Think Earth Stance would be pretty reliable against your regular bandits and so on, and just a complication against more advanced bushis (instead of straight away blocking opportunities from them.)

But i dont know for what they are aiming, if being balanced compared to air stance is what they want or if they really want a super defensive stance that you can fall back to if you are really worried.

It seems like stances are not just useful in combat. So sure, the Earth stance is very strong in combat, but almost useless outside of it. I would say there is thus a balance.

8 hours ago, Drudenfusz said:

It seems like stances are not just useful in combat. So sure, the Earth stance is very strong in combat, but almost useless outside of it. I would say there is thus a balance.

I would argue, then, that this is a flaw, actually. If Earth Stance is strong in combat, but does nothing outside of combat, then it is poorly designed and needs to be redesigned.

4 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

I would argue, then, that this is a flaw, actually. If Earth Stance is strong in combat, but does nothing outside of combat, then it is poorly designed and needs to be redesigned.

I didn't said: "nothing"... there are still uses, like the immunity to opportunities would still be there. And I also made a suggestion in the Iaijutsu thread that if used would still make it useful to be in Earth Stance when one expects that sudden burst of violence by someone in an otherwise peaceful sittuation.

It's for both Attack actions and Scheme actions, so it's in all conflicts. It should be tested as is, but probably needs to be changed to:

"increase cost of any effect targeting the character by 1 Opportunity"